


This Particular Anniversary

by mille_libri



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-06-26 23:17:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15673296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mille_libri/pseuds/mille_libri
Summary: Peg Hunnicutt sets out to make an anniversary tape for her husband. (Companion to S9E14, "Oh, How We Danced")





	1. The Package

Peg Hunnicutt looked down at the face of her sleeping daughter. The traces of tears drying on the round little cheeks were the only sign of what a long process it had been getting Erin to take her nap, and now Peg herself was exhausted. She had looked forward to Erin falling asleep to get to some much-needed housework, but now she was thinking instead maybe she would put her feet up and—

The doorbell rang. Peg’s immediate thought was for the baby—if whoever was at the door woke her, Peg was going to break down in tears of her own.

For a moment, it looked touch and go. Erin started at the sound, her eyelids fluttering, but then they closed again and she breathed a long, sweet sigh as she settled fully into sleep. 

Peg breathed her own sigh of relief as she made her way downstairs, hurrying a little to make sure whoever it was didn’t have the chance to ring the doorbell again.

Opening the door, she smiled at the mailman, a friendly older man who had kids and grandkids of his own. His face was twisted and worried until he saw her smile. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hunnicutt. Did I wake the baby?”

“No, Mr. Collins, but thank you for being concerned.”

“Oh, good. I would have left the package on the porch, but … it’s from Korea, and I thought you’d want to know it was here right away.”

“From Korea?” Peg reached greedily for the small paper-wrapped package. What had BJ sent? Something for Erin? Something he’d picked up in Seoul or Tokyo because it made him think of her? His letters and packages were her lifeline, her reminder that this life alone with Erin wasn’t forever, that they would be a family again soon. Turning the package in her hands, she frowned. “This isn’t BJ’s handwriting.”

“No, I didn’t think it was.” Mr. Collins’ face wrinkled in concern again. “Do you think Dr. Hunnicutt is all right?”

Peg’s heart pounded for a moment in fear until she forced herself to think calmly. “I would have heard. Telegraph, or … Colonel Potter, his commanding officer, he would have found a way to call. Still …” She smiled apologetically at the mailman. “I can’t wait. Do you have a knife I can borrow?”

“Of course.” He produced a pocketknife and carefully slit the paper wrapping. 

Unwrapping the package, Peg let the paper fall to the floor as she opened the box. Inside was another box that looked like a tape recording, and a letter in that same unfamiliar writing. She turned the letter over, looking for the signature. “B.F. Pierce. Hawkeye! It’s from BJ’s friend.” She scanned the opening lines of the letter before returning it to its place on top of the tape recording. “He’s trying to surprise BJ for our anniversary.” Peg didn’t know whether to smile or cry.

“Well, now.” Mr. Collins’ face settled back into the broad smile he was known for. “Isn’t that thoughtful.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Thank you, Mr. Collins.”

“My pleasure, Mrs. Hunnicutt.” 

As he turned to go on with his deliveries, she picked up the fallen paper from the porch floor and went back inside. She put the box down on the table in the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee before sitting down to read the letter over again more carefully.

_Dear Peg,_   
_I hope you don’t mind my jumping to first names. After all the stories BJ has told me, how often he talks about you, calling you ‘Mrs. Hunnicutt’ doesn’t seem right._   
_BJ is fine—as fine as anyone can be over here. And a hell of a surgeon, too. You have a lot to be proud of._

Peg blinked away tears. She knew how much Hawkeye meant to her husband, and how much BJ admired Hawkeye’s skills. To see that those emotions were shared touched her deeply; if he had to be there, so far from home and everything familiar, she was glad he had found someone who meant something to him.

A secret part of her was even more glad that he had found a man who meant something, and not a woman. A couple of his letters had worried her. She’d had her own temptations here—how much more must there be over there, working so closely with skilled, talented women, winding down with them after a long day, so far from home? She would have understood, of course she would, if she had to, but she was just as glad, if there ever had been a moment she would have had to understand, not to know.

She went back to the letter, pulling her thoughts away from the dark place they went to if she dwelled on Korea too long.

_As you know, your anniversary is coming up; over here, if you want to be on time, you have to start early, and we want to make this a special occasion for BJ and help him get through it. I’ve never had an anniversary myself, but I know BJ and I know how hard it will be for him to be here without you that day. I can’t imagine it will be easy for you, either. If I could make it different, make a way for the two of you to be together, I would._   
_But I think we found the next best thing. The enclosed tape is a recording we put together of BJ talking about home and the things he loves about being there and being with you. Think of it as your anniversary present, a little early. What we want you to do is to make a home movie we can watch with him on the day, what the day might have been like if you could be together._   
_Need I say this is a surprise? If we’d asked, he would have told us not to do it. How you put up with that stubborn cheeseball, I’ll never know._

Peg chuckled through her tears. Of course he would have. She wondered how they had managed to get him talking about home without him knowing what they were doing, and she could hardly wait to listen to the recording.

_In closing … I want to thank you for what you’ve given up. Without BJ here, a lot of boys wouldn’t have lived to go home—and at least one doctor wouldn’t have had any sanity to take home with him, if he ever gets to go._   
_Yours truly,_  
 _B.F. Pierce_

The “B.F. Pierce” had been scratched out and then rewritten, and “Hawkeye” written below it. Peg had to smile at the idea of the man BJ had told her about so often being so hesitant in the act of signing a letter. It gave her a new perspective on Hawkeye—and made her like him a bit more. She hoped someday she had the chance to meet him.

A cry from upstairs signaled that naptime was over and her time alone was up for the day. Peg looked with a sigh around the messy kitchen, and at the basket full of unfolded laundry that sat next to the ironing board. They would have to wait.

Carefully she put the tape and the letter back in the box and put them away in a cupboard where they would be safe until she had time to listen to the tape. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow morning, while Erin played, they would listen to her daddy’s voice.


	2. The Tape

All night, Peg tried to keep her mind off the recording. She didn’t dare listen to it alone in the dark after Erin had gone to bed; if she did, the loneliness would swamp her, the longing for BJ in her arms, for his touch and his smile and his love and his soft whispers in the dark. When he came home, she would ship Erin off to his parents’ house for a week and just keep him in the bedroom looking and touching and feeling until she had filled the hole left by his absence. 

If he came home.

“When,” she said fiercely to herself, out loud. This was why she couldn’t listen to the recording at night, because she would lie awake all night missing him, fearing for him, imagining a future without him.

Before she went to bed, though, she reread Hawkeye’s letter, taking comfort in the knowledge that so far from home, her darling had such devoted friends. 

The next morning, she fed and bathed Erin as quickly as she could before settling her on the carpet with a toy. Usually this quiet part of the morning, one of few moments in the day when Erin was content to play on her own, Peg used for bills and grocery lists and letter-writing, things she could do while she kept an eye on Erin, things she could put down quickly if the baby needed her.

Today, she left the pile of papers on the desk alone and put in the tape, holding her breath waiting for the beloved voice, watching Erin. “Listen for your daddy, baby,” she whispered, knowing Erin wouldn’t understand, knowing with a pang in her heart that Erin wouldn’t even know whose voice she was hearing.

The tape rolled, a little scratchy, and then she heard an unfamiliar voice asking, “So what would you do if you were home for your anniversary?” It must be Hawkeye, she was sure. 

“You don’t really want to know, do you?” Peg could feel tears springing to her eyes as BJ’s voice came from the little machine. It was scratchy and distorted, but it was his, and she missed him so much.

“Sure I do! I may need to know someday.”

On the tape, BJ chuckled, the warmth of the sound curling around Peg’s heart. He had found someone there who made him laugh. “I can’t imagine you needing any help planning a romantic evening.”

“I see you’ve been talking to the nurses,” Hawkeye quipped. “Now, go on. Tell me what you’d do.”

“Smile at each other,” BJ said slowly, as if he was thinking about it. “Congratulate ourselves on another year well done.” Peg couldn’t help picturing it as he said it, imagining him here on the sofa next to her. “’Course we’d dance,” he went on, and she got up, positioning herself properly, dancing around the floor as if his voice were the music. Erin stopped playing and looked up at her, the dark eyes wide in her little face. “We’ve always done that.” 

They had. Their first date had been dancing, and when they discovered how well they fit together, how well they moved together, they had never wanted to stop. Of course, Peg thought, blushing a little, eventually they had discovered how well they fit together, how well they moved together, more intimately, and they had never wanted to stop doing that, either. If only he were here …

But those were thoughts she tried to push away as often as she could, or at least to keep for darkness and the privacy of her own bed. No sense torturing herself with her loneliness and the empty ache inside her any more than she had to.

On the tape, BJ went on, “Though on our last anniversary, Peg was eight months pregnant. Made for some very interesting steps, and very little jitterbugging.” She smiled at the memory, but the smile faded and the tears came again as he sighed and said, “I guess that’s why it’s so tough to miss out on this one—our first anniversary with Erin.”

Hawkeye’s voice, agreeing, said, “Yeah, that is tough.” 

Peg started to feel a little uncomfortable listening in on their intimate talk, the two of them clearly such good friends. It was like eavesdropping. But of course, she was meant to hear; this was all for her.  
BJ’s voice came again. “It’s the little things I miss most.”

“Like what?” Hawkeye asked.

“Watching Peg give Erin a bath, seeing her blow the bubbles off her little hand.”

Peg stopped her phantom dancing, hurrying to the table to find a piece of paper. _Dancing_ , she wrote. _Giving Erin a bath, blow bubbles off hand._ If these were BJ’s memories, she would give them to him exactly as he wanted. She blessed Hawkeye for the idea.

On the tape, she could hear squeaking as if BJ had sat up on his cot. He asked Hawkeye, “Why are you asking me this stuff, anyway?”

“I’m interested,” Hawkeye’s voice protested. “I’ve never had an anniversary. Come to think of it, I’ve never had a bath.”

Peg smiled at that, although she could practically see the skeptical, suspicious expression on BJ’s face. Hawkeye’s deflection with humor wouldn’t work on him for long. But then, maybe Hawkeye knew that. 

“Come on, what else would you do?” Hawkeye’s voice asked on the recording. “Where would you eat?”

Mollified for the moment, BJ’s voice relaxed as he answered. “Oh, I don’t know. A little place in Sausalito, maybe, or better still, a candle-light dinner at home.”

A new voice cut in—“Captain, come quick! Major Winchester’s been attacked in post-op!”

The tape cut out, leaving Peg to wonder what could have happened to Major Winchester. From what BJ had told her about him, she suspected he might have brought it on himself, but she hoped he was all right. It occurred to her that unless what happened was on the rest of the tape, she would never know and couldn’t ask without explaining to BJ how she knew something had occurred. 

BJ’s voice came back on. “Peg’s always up first, changing Erin, nursing her. Except, now she’s on regular food. I can’t believe it’s almost a year. Sometimes if I close my eyes and think hard, I can picture Peg and Erin so clear it’s like I’m back home.”

Just then, Erin started crying. Peg turned off the recording and picked up the little girl, dancing around with her a little, humming their favorite song, and that worked for a while. Soon they were into the morning routine, where Peg tried to do some cleaning and get lunch ready while bouncing an unhappy little girl on her hip. But in her mind she was in Korea, in the Swamp with her husband and his best friend, listening to them talk to each other so comfortably. Later today, during Erin’s naptime, she would sit and listen to more of the tape and begin planning how to make BJ’s anniversary in Korea the special one he dreamed of.

As if somehow she knew that there was something unusual going on, Erin fought extra hard against the nap, trying her best to stay awake, crying until she nearly made herself sick. Peg gentled and calmed and soothed and hushed, rocking her baby and stroking her back. There were times she found this infuriating, times she had to walk out of the room because the temptation to scream and cry in unison with Erin was almost more than she could resist. But today, she thought of BJ, and all the naptimes he had missed, all the nights of bathing Erin and tucking her into bed, all the playing and the feeding and the holding and the being thrown up on at four in the morning, and how much he would give to be here right now. She had heard that longing in his voice, and it had gone straight to her heart. If she were honest with herself, it reassured as much as it hurt, restoring her sense that there were two of them in this parenting thing and not just her, all by herself.

As soon as Erin’s eyelids had fluttered closed for the last time, Peg hurried from the room, tiptoeing down the stairs to avoid making the smallest sound that might startle and waken her baby. She headed for the phone and dialed the number of BJ’s parents. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad, it’s Peg.” She called them ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’ not just because they felt like it by now, but to distinguish them from her parents in Oklahoma, who had always been Pa and Ma.

“Hello, there, sweetheart, how’s the baby?”

“Napping.”

“Good for you. Did you call to talk to Mom?”

“No, actually, I was hoping— Do you have a home movie camera?”

“I’m afraid not. I thought about buying one, but Mom said we didn’t need it. Why?”

“You know our anniversary is coming up in a few months, and BJ’s friends want me to make a tape and send it to him for our anniversary, show some of the things we might do to celebrate, some of the things I do with Erin every day, that kind of thing.”

“Well, now, isn’t that thoughtful. Must be that commanding officer of his, Potter.”

“No, it seems to have been his friend Hawkeye’s idea.”

“Huh. What do you know.” BJ wrote to them, too, but Peg had the idea they didn’t love Hawkeye and his antics. Which surprised her, because BJ, their golden boy, had gotten into his fair share of antics growing up and since—he was an accomplished jokester, even if he had learned early on not to pull them on her. 

Maybe once Dad listened to the tape, he would understand how important Hawkeye was to BJ, she thought.

“I suppose I could rent one.”

“Oh, would you, please?”

He agreed to find a place to rent a camera and bring it over day after tomorrow, so Peg got down to the serious business of deciding exactly what would be on the movie.

That she would tell him how much she loved and missed him, how much she looked forward to seeing him again, was a given … but she couldn’t overdo it. He already tore his heart out missing her and Erin and their life together. Whatever she said, she couldn’t make it harder for him to be there doing the important work he had been called to do. Peg decided to write out what she would say in advance, so that she couldn’t be tempted to go too far.

She would play with Erin a bit for the camera, give her the bath BJ had talked about; she would lay the table for a candelight dinner and dress up for him, something suitable for dancing. She would put on soft music. All the things they loved about a quiet evening together.


	3. The 4077th

It occurred to Peg that she hadn’t listened to the rest of the tape. Tiptoeing to the bottom of the stairs, she could hear nothing, and she gave a sigh of relief. After all that fuss, Erin usually napped a long time. When she didn’t … it could be a long evening.

Tiptoeing back, Peg pressed play on the tape again, listening eagerly even as she crossed her fingers for continued silence from upstairs.

BJ’s voice was saying “I really haven’t given it much thought, why?”

There was a pause, and then Hawkeye’s voice, loud and overdone. Peg wondered uneasily if BJ could see through all of this and knew just what was happening—Hawkeye was trying too hard.

“I don’t know,” Hawkeye was saying, “I’ve just always liked weather. Rain can be refreshing. Sleet can be good, too. Fog is nice. I understand there’s a lot of fog in San Francisco.”

Peg put her hands over her face and only just managed to keep from laughing. That was the most awkward transition.

But BJ didn’t seem to have noticed. He answered, “Oh, yeah. Sometimes in the late afternoon the fog rolls in and covers the Golden Gate.” There was a pause, and then he said suspiciously, “Suddenly we’re talking about San Francisco again. How come?”

“Well, I already know all about my home,” Hawkeye replied. “I used to live there ... a lot. I, uh, just, I’m curious about yours.”

Peg could hear music in the background, the clink of glasses, other voices. They must be in the Officer’s Club, she guessed. 

Apparently BJ was taking Hawkeye’s quickly made-up answer at face value. He said, “What do you want to know?”

“What do you do first thing in the morning?”

Peg frowned at the tape. Hawkeye needed a script. Or maybe this was what all their conversations were like.

“What? Wait a minute, did I miss a step here?” BJ was asking. “You want to know about my home, so you ask what I do in the morning?”

“Oh, did I say home? I’m sorry. No, I meant the people. People, uh, in the home. You know, I mean, what’s a home without people, just a big house with a dog in it.”

A muffled laugh escaped Peg despite her best efforts. Hawkeye was making such a hash of this, but it really was terribly funny. And she loved this glimpse into their life together, the way they interacted with one another.

“Don’t let me, uh, don’t let me interrupt you. Go ahead. What do you, what do you do first thing in the morning?”

“I open my eyes,” BJ said. She could just imagine his face, staring at Hawkeye like he was a babbling idiot. “That is generally followed by yawning and getting out of bed. Now, stop me if this is getting too exciting for you.”

Peg smiled, feeling her cheeks pinken. Some mornings, there was quite a bit of excitement between the yawn and the getting out of bed, although she was glad BJ hadn’t mentioned that to Hawkeye.

“No, no, this is great,” Hawkeye protested. “What do you do then?”

“I go downstairs, and Peg pours me a damn cup of coffee, and I drink it. What difference does it make what I do in the morning?” BJ sounded annoyed, and Peg had to smile, adding _pour cup of coffee_ to her list of things to show him.

“Right, you’re right, I’ve been running that subject into the ground,” Hawkeye agreed. “Let’s just drop it.”

“Good.”

“What do you do in the afternoon?”

There was a silence after Hawkeye’s question, and Peg could just imagine the two of them staring at each other. 

“Sometimes I get in the middle of annoying conversations with my neighbor,” BJ growled. “I’ve had about enough of this.”

“What can I say, I’m interested!”

“Well, I’m not.” There was a scraping sound, and then a door closed in the distance, and the tape cut out.

Upstairs, Peg could hear a bit of a grumble, and she held her breath. Sometimes Erin woke up during naptime and soothed herself back to sleep. Maybe this would be one of those times.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye’s voice had come back on the tape.

“Peg, it’s up to you now. I wish I could have gotten you more to work with, but we didn’t want to give away the surprise. Everyone is in on this, so address your return package to me and Klinger will make sure Beej doesn’t see it until it’s time.” He cleared his throat. “I wish I could send him home to you. It’s where he wants to be. He talks about you and your little girl all the time, and misses you every minute, in case you’ve ever doubted it. I do what I can to make things bearable for him—and he makes them bearable for me. And don’t worry. We all look out for each other over here. The 4077th is going to make sure he comes home to you … someday.”

Erin had burst into a full-blown cry upstairs, no more naptime for her, but Peg couldn’t go just yet. She was holding on to the back of the chair in front of her, lost in tears of her own. Tears of longing and fear for her husband, yes, but tears of joy that he had such devoted friends, as well. To know that people over there loved him and were looking out for him made her feel so much better about the rest of his time there. And it wouldn’t be that much longer, she told herself firmly.

Reaching for her handkerchief, she wiped her face and blew her nose and resolutely headed upstairs to pick up the screaming baby and try to get her calmed again.

The rest of that evening was a nightmare, and Erin slept poorly after her shortened nap. It took all of the next day—a dreary, rainy day—to get her sleep back on track and her mood turned around. Peg wondered if somehow the sound of BJ’s voice had done it, if Erin was missing her daddy the same way Peg was suddenly missing her husband again with all the fierceness of the first few weeks without him. It seemed silly to think, really, that a baby could be so unsettled by a voice, but then, what else would she remember of BJ but the voice that used to sing her lullabies before she was even born?

“He’ll be home before you know it, little girl,” Peg whispered as she put Erin down to sleep that night, comforted a little by the fact that it was nothing less than the truth—Erin would never truly know how long the time was until her father was home. 

She tiptoed downstairs, weary herself after two days of cranky baby and creaky house with all sorts of things that suddenly seemed to need repair and no cheerful husband to talk to. But she wanted to write out what she would say on the movie tomorrow, so that she couldn’t slip up or say the wrong thing or make BJ feel bad about being gone. It wasn’t his fault, and as Hawkeye said, there were boys coming home every day who wouldn’t have if BJ hadn’t been there. Her pride in him and in his skill at his work were tremendous, and she wanted him to feel that in every moment of the tape she made, so he could keep that knowledge by his side as long as he was in Korea.


	4. The Camera

BJ’s father was a big, rangy guy, built like his son, still strong and capable even as he aged. His face lit up when he saw Erin in Peg’s arms. “There’s my little bit!”

Erin reached out, crowing, and her grandfather dropped everything to take her, bouncing her a bit as she giggled. Peg didn’t know what she would have done without these generous people, who were always willing to come over and help when she needed it. If she didn’t ask as often as she might have, that was about herself and her own need to do things on her own more than it was about them. 

She picked up the recorder and various paraphernalia from the porch and carried it in behind Erin and her grandfather.

“So you’re making a recording of yourself to send to BJ?” he asked, frowning at her over Erin's head as he tried to understand the task ahead of them.

“Not just me. Erin, too. Just … some little things he misses, the daily routines, the way I might dress up for our anniversary. I set as much of what I needed up yesterday as I could. Can we add some of the recording Hawkeye made, too? I imagine BJ won’t remember just what he said, so I want to remind him why I’ve put in some of what I have.”

“Sure.” She could tell he wasn’t quite certain what she meant, so she played him the tape, looking tactfully away as his eyes filled with tears when he heard his son’s voice, so well and strong. She hoped he understood the deep friendship between BJ and Hawkeye, too. If Hawkeye hadn’t been in Korea … Peg didn’t like to think about it. BJ might be miserable.

They started simply: Peg stood by the stairs as the camera began to roll. She felt a little silly and awkward, going through the motions like this, taking a newspaper and carrying it to the fireplace. But when she touched the picture of BJ she kept there she remembered why she was doing this, and it became easier. She pantomimend starting a fire in the fireplace, the scene of so many romantic nights. 

Then they fed Erin her lunch, waving her little hand at the camera. And Peg carried a coffee pot across the room, pouring a cup full and handing it to the camera, smiling a little as she thought of BJ’s annoyance with Hawkeye’s many questions. 

They changed Erin and set her down with a toy, a jack in the box she alternately loved and hated. Today she hated it, but her grandfather thought the way her face twisted up and the tears spilled over was adorable, so they kept it, and Peg cuddled Erin with a softer, less surprising toy until the tears faded and they got a little smile.

After that, they gave Erin a bath, lots of bubbles, blowing the bubbles around, and tucked her in for a much-needed nap.

Peg changed into her best dress, the one she had worn the night they went out to celebrate when they first found out she was pregnant—it had taken some work to get back into it, but with BJ gone it was even a little loose now. She fixed her hair, and then smiled into the camera as she came down the stairs toward it. She had set up the dining room as if they were having a candlelight dinner, and she lit the candles for the camera, moving to the end of the table and smiling at the camera again. Finally, she sat down near the fireplace, where the flames were crackling, and invited the camera to move closer, holding her smile fiercely until she thought they had enough footage.

“You all set, then?” her father-in-law asked. His eyes were suspiciously bright. Peg wanted to cry a little, too, but she could wait until she was done. This was more important.

“Let’s do the sound, now, before Erin wakes up.”

“You got it.”

She was grateful her father-in-law was so handy. He had figured out the camera and its various components quickly, and she knew she would be sending BJ something special. He set up the voice recording for her, and she had the tape player nearby so she could use BJ’s own words. Her words she had worked on carefully, and she spoke them into the player as if she were speaking directly to her husband. “Hi, darling. More than anything I wish we could be together today, and I know you feel the same. Your wonderful friends obviously know, too.” She couldn’t help laughing a little at Hawkeye’s clumsy questions. “So, with the help of Dad, some rented equipment, and a little tape recording Hawkeye sent me, here’s how this day might be if you were here.”

It took some fiddling to get the tape recording from Hawkeye lined up properly so she could put the right words in the right places, but they got it eventually.

On the recording, BJ said, “Better still, a candlelight dinner at home.” When he stopped, Peg spoke into the device. “Then we’d dance, and talk, and hold each other. BJ, I know that some film and tape can’t actually replace the real thing, but this particular anniversary will always be special to me. Don’t be sad, darling. Even though I can’t be with you, the thought of you, and the love I hear in your voice makes me realize how wonderful it’ll be when we’re together again. Ten thousand miles can never separate us from the love we share. Happy anniversary, darling.”

She stopped there. She had to. The tears had caught up to her, and she laid her head down on the table and wept, trying to stifle the sounds so as not to wake Erin, terribly embarrassed to be crying so in front of her father-in-law, until she realized he was crying, too, and she stood up and hugged him and they cried together.


	5. The Voice

BJ’s father took the tape home with him so that he could watch it and make sure everything was put together right. Also so he could show it to BJ’s mother, Peg suspected, but she didn’t mind. BJ was their one and only, their adored child. Having him on the other side of the world, under fire, in constant danger, was as hard on them as it was on Peg. She was endlessly grateful for Erin, who brought them together and gave them all hope for the future.

The next day, BJ’s parents brought the tape back and shooed Peg out of the house so she could run some errands in peace while they doted on their granddaughter. Peg knew perfectly well she would get back and find Erin overtired and cranky from too much attention, but it was a small price to pay for some time to herself, and for the presence of Erin’s grandparents in her life. It didn’t make up for the absence of her father, but it helped. And Peg comforted herself with the knowledge that Erin would never remember BJ being gone. Assuming he came home …

She pulled herself away from that line of thought, wrapping up the tape securely in the box she had prepared for it. She tucked into the top of the box the letter she had written Hawkeye, stopping to read it over.

_Dear Hawkeye –_   
_I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for this gesture. We both know what it will mean to BJ. I am glad that he has friends like you in Korea to help make the long days go faster. Knowing that you are looking out for him helps me sleep better at night. I know he is looking out for you as well. If there is ever anything I can do for you, I would be happy to._   
_Sincerely,_   
_Peg_

It felt a bit stiff, but she knew from what BJ had written her that Hawkeye was uncomfortable with real emotion, and she had tried to be sincere without being … overwhelming. There weren’t words to accurately express to him what he had given her with this scheme of his, anyway. For these brief few days, she had felt as though BJ was only in the next room, felt his presence close to her in a way she hadn’t for a long time. Hawkeye had given her that, the opportunity to really put herself to work on a project that meant so much to her, and would mean so much to BJ. She would never forget it. She had meant what she said on the tape, that this anniversary would always be special to her, because it would remind her how precious what they had was, and how true friends were there for each other.

She took the package, carefully wrapped up and addressed to Hawkeye—she was sure Corporal Klinger would be the first one to see the mail and would make sure BJ didn’t see that she was sending a package to his roommate—to the post office.

They knew her by now, so there were no more wrangles about the address or the distance or the shipping costs. “Please. This one is fragile. Can you … take extra care with it?”

“Special delivery?”

Peg nodded. “Very special.”

Weeks later, two days after her anniversary, the phone rang while she was feeding Erin her dinner. She leaped for it, the crackle of the long distance on the line telling her even before she heard BJ’s voice that it was the call she had been waiting for. She hadn’t let the phone go unanswered in nearly a week, knowing that BJ would have to call whenever he could get an open line, and that often took a while. She’d been very sharp with her mother when she’d called on the anniversary itself, not wanting to hold up the line, just in case. She’d have to call back later and apologize, Peg thought. But for now …

“Hello, darling!”

“Oh, Peg, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are you? How’s Erin?”

“We’re fine. She’s fine. Two new teeth this week!”

“That’s great! Are you getting any sleep?”

“Your parents took her last week overnight and let me get some. They’ve been so good, BJ. I know they miss you.”

“I miss them, too. Look, sweetheart, I don’t have long. I just wanted to tell you—to thank you for—our anniversary. I—“

Peg smiled, feeling her own eyes fill with tears even as BJ’s voice roughened and cracked with emotion over the line. “Thank Hawkeye. It was all his idea. Please tell him I’m so grateful. I felt so close to you making that movie, it made me feel like you were really coming home.”

“Watching it, I felt that way, too, like I was just around the corner and you and Erin were right there. Peg, I miss you both so much.”

“We miss you, too. But we’re so proud of the work you’re doing. Hawkeye’s letter said that a lot of young men might not be coming home to their own families because of you. That’s what we have to hold on to. It’s precious time out of our lives, but it’s giving lives to others, and I am so proud of you.”

There was a silence, and a long breath as if BJ was trying to gain control of himself. “Thank you, Peg. I love you so much. I have to go now … I’ll write immediately, and call again as soon as I can.”

“I’ll write, too. Thank you for the necklace!” He had bought it in Seoul and sent it to her; it had arrived just the day before. A simple gold necklace with a heart on a chain, but it came with BJ’s heart attached, and that made it perfect. “I love you! Erin loves you! Good-bye!” The last word broke off because the silence on the line said it had been cut off. It hadn’t been enough—it was never enough. 

But it would do. For now.

Peg turned to the portable tape player she had bought and pressed play. BJ’s voice came from the speakers. “I go downstairs and Peg pours me a damn cup of coffee and I drink it!”

She picked up Erin, holding her close. “Listen, baby. Listen to your Daddy’s voice.”


End file.
